The final piece to finishing the Caretakers Cottage

AD | As you all know when doing a renovation project there are them last little things that you just never get around to doing until, well, you are under pressure to do it. Like selling your house! I know we did that with the last place. We perfected it all just to sell and then never got to enjoy the final masterpiece. This time its the pressure of getting it perfect for our guests to arrive.

Well the final piece for us on the inside of the Caretakers Cottage was the rooflight. We already had a VELUX rooflight in place which was installed in the 1990’s. Did you know you can still get the parts for them and the blinds? Pretty impressive after 30 years! Unfortunately we wanted to improve its thermal efficiency, and for a 300 year old cottage you can imagine how insulated it is... not at all!

So over time we have added a ridiculous amount of insulation where we can, to offset the huge heat loss you get in old buildings. The final piece in the puzzle was this rooflight. I mean by any standards the rooflight was still functioning great but we wanted to take advantage of the new products VELUX offers, which include triple glazed units. Luckily VELUX standard sized rooflights haven't changed in 30 years so we could get one to fit the exact sized opening we already had.

Also the original rooflight didnt sit correctly in the roof as it was a standard VELUX rather than a conservation rooflight which sits pretty flush with the tiles. I mean its a small detail but for us, it made a world of difference to its appearance on the outside.

We did question its removal entirely as we have a window already in this room but after testing it by blocking the light out, we realised its value. Did you know a rooflight provides around 30% more natural light in comparison to a normal window installed in a wall of a similar size.

We aren’t one for closing the light out when we sleep so we got used to being able to look up and see the night sky, something quite nice about it. We also knew that some like to sleep in darkness so VELUX’s clip on black out blinds ticked that box too.

Now we must say that we installed the rooflight ourselves and whilst the instructions make it simple, we would always suggest an approved VELUX installer to carry out the works to ensure its done right! We have been getting our skylights from VELUX for the last 10 years and I dont see us changing anytime soon. This is the second rooflight we have fitted ourselves, who knows, maybe by the time that we finish the estate we would have added and changed so many that we will qualify as certified installers?